How to Play Pool: Top Spin

How to Play Pool, with Gareth Potts, 3 times World Champion. In this edition Gareth explains how to play the top spin shot.

Video Transcription:

Gareth Potts: All right, so this is the top spin shot. I actually think that playing this shot is a little bit more difficult than the screw shots in many ways, because I think that sometimes to get the action on the cue ball, you have to hit it a lot harder sometimes, because it actually comes back slightly first before it then goes forward. It's hard to play the shots for another reason, because you have to keep your arm, I think, in more of a straight line because you have to push through further. So I'm just going to explain, just quickly, how this goes through. I'm going to set up the same as I did with the screw shot. But obviously this time, I'm higher on the white rather than lower. To make the ball go through this time, rather than strike at the bottom, which makes it come back, I'm going to strike at the top, which make the white push through after it's hit the ball, something like this.

Okay, so I'm going to explain a little bit more about the top spin shot, here. Something important to remember is your bridge hand. So when I get down to play the shot, me knuckles slightly get raised, because I need to find the top of the cue ball to push the cue through, obviously to hit the top to make the white go through. If I was playing a screw shot, me knuckles would actually be flatter onto the table, which allows me to get to the bottom of the white. In this case, I'm going to play a top spin. So I raise me hand slightly, and then do exactly the same, push me cue through in a straight line, but because me knuckles are raised it allows me to get through to the top of the cue ball. So, something like this; knuckles raised allows me to hit the top of the ball, cue back in a straight line through.

Okay, so this time I'm going to play a power top spin shot, which again, is more difficult. But, it works in the same principle as the screw shot. It's not how fast you bring the cue back, it's not actually how fast you push the cue forward. It needs to be a slow acceleration from the backswing to the delivery. You need to push the cue through in a straight line, and make sure the cue follows through, to at least halfway from where the cue ball to where the black ball is. Okay, so like this. Cue back in a straight line, and then accelerate through; top spin.